Invest in UpStaged Entertainment Group

“March Madness meets Pitch Perfect!" Empowering College/HS Performers

EARLY BIRD TERMS: $95,923 LEFT

$304,077

of a $1,070,000 goal

INVEST

min $100

INVESTMENT TERMS

$12M $10M valuation cap Future Equity

Early Bird Bonus: The first $400K of investments will be in a SAFE with a $10M valuation cap and 20% discount

$1K, $2.5K, $5K, $10K, $25K

LEAD INVESTOR

I invested in UpStaged because I believe Student Performing Arts is the last bastion of unclaimed real estate in competitive entertainment. UpStaged’s unique hub for championship events and the actionable fan/player data they generate has enormous potential. I’ve successfully invested in, advised and/or operated dozens of companies while vetting hundreds more. The more I learned about UpStaged the more I thought, “I can’t believe no one has ever done this!” I’ve experienced the world of sports from all sides: as athlete, investor, team owner, advisor, attorney, producer and baseball player agent. And while I also enjoy the theatre, improv, or a live music performance, to me each of those was just a different thing to go see and consume. I didn’t feel the same unifying themes as I did with sports. However, it was not until I saw my own kids and their friends practicing and performing that a true spark went off and I recognized that performing arts are not only their own world, but share ties to what I’d always seen in sports: the same spirit of competition and common energy. Both sports and performing arts embody discipline, strength, flexibility, teamwork, persistence, pressure, guts, timing and the will to perform and compete. Ask any iconic athlete – they’ll tell you they are artists - creative visionaries, with the field as their canvas. Like each sport, each performance genre brings its own skills and personal stories, but it was only recently that I realized the arts are really part of one greater whole. And there was opportunity to bring the two worlds of sports and performing arts together. Thinking about it as investor, everything else in sports and entertainment is nearing maturity, if not saturation. The NCAA reportedly generates over $14 billion a year in revenue. Yet, the entire college/high school performing arts space is amazingly fragmented, and almost completely unmonetized and untapped, and ironically, pay to play. Family, friends, grants and bake sales support these stars who are as passionate about their performances as any athlete. Creating a hub for ALL student performing arts is not only a unique business opportunity but a gift to the performing arts community at large. We are creating the ecosystem for student performing artists to be recognized by each other and passionate fans…along with a business model to organize, harness and monetize just some of that passion. I think it’s about time we recognize that the artists who perform on stage are as serious competitors as any on the field. They deserve their time, and that time is now. Having worked with UpStaged CEO Stephan Hartman multiple times over the course of the past 15 years, including serving on the Board of the U.S. Sports Film Festival, which he founded and led, I will always support him due to his perseverance, focus and unwavering commitment to the success of his ideas. Steve is everything we should be looking for in an entrepreneur: a leader who is passionate, energetic, persistent, dedicated, competent, experienced, organized, detailed, and connected. He is someone who believes in, practices, and lives what he is promoting. As such, we’re bringing talent, fans, technology, and commerce together to power a brand new ecosystem. This is the last available market, the last frontier. I think it’s special and UpStaged is here to claim it. I’ve been in from the beginning as an advisor, early investor and now Lead Investor. Join us!

upstagedu.com

New York NY

Female Founder B2C Minority Founder Entertainment Music

Highlights

FIRST & ONLY Performing Arts Hub dedicated to 7.5M college/HS performers similar to 480K NCAA athletes generating $14+B

500,000 performing groups in more than 25 genres, including theater, a cappella, DJ, gospel, step and comedy

Proven monetization plan in place across live/virtual events, sponsorship, uniforms, NIL & IMDb/LinkedIn-type community

Valuable OWNED trademark: UpStaged, National Collegiate Performing Arts (NCPA) TM & National High School Performing Arts

Most similar business: Varsity Spirit Cheer, sold to Bain for $750M, and only one performing genre, compared to our 25+

Wall Street exec CEO conceived and built acclaimed U. S. Sports Film Festival and entertainment & education businesses

Executive team from Disney, Nike, Elite Models, Starbucks, Marvel, McKinsey and more

25 savvy entertainment, media and Wall Street investors, including Lead Investor CEO builder of the Marvel Experience

Our Team

We are passionate about three things: performing arts, sports and building things. When we can combine all three, we are the most happy. In particular, we care about empowering our nation’s, and ultimately our world’s, dynamic student performers to be able to compete like athletes, and to get the glory and satisfaction that student athletes get.

Why UpStaged Entertainment?

High school and college performers in the U.S. are a large, visible group that has the potential to fuel an exponential growth in revenue. The force of presence, cultural value, and overall clout that these performing artists generate for their institutions is priceless. Yet their contributions remain unmonetized, representing an exciting opportunity for investment in an ever-expanding, and proven, collegiate and high school competitive performing arts business model.

Most student performers hone their skills and provide entertainment to the masses for free, because of a simple love for their craft. But if 480,000 NCAA athletes can sustain a $14 BILLION college athletics industry, why can't the same competitive spirit and spectacle sustain an even LARGER group of talented student performers? UpStaged events are expanding significantly across college campuses and world-class venues!

With the continued expansion of our UpStaged trademarked brands, we are creating new and exciting opportunities for students across the nation, to perform in brand-new, high-value, high-visibility, talent competitions and showcases. These events are attracting thousands of performers and spectators alike — and generating an unprecedented opportunity to capitalize.

400K student athletes, on 15K teams, generate a $14B college athletics industry. If this seems like a lot, it pales in comparison to the potential of the performing arts. Imagine what 7.5 million student performers in 300K groups across 25+ genres could generate in revenue, if only given the chance.

UpStaged is building an enormous, experiential marketing platform in the collegiate and high school performing arts space. We're launching a business ecosystem that integrates the goals and objectives of corporate sponsors and philanthropic funders with those of the student performers, industry professionals, content platforms, schools and the media, to come together in fruitful collaboration.

UpStaged has established a multi-stream revenue model with event registration fees, ticket sales, national broadcasting, apparel, advertising, sponsorship, and in the future, a nonprofit arm to leverage philanthropic fundraising opportunities and more.

UpStaged has a dynamic team with years of experience in entertainment, finance and delivering supreme shareholder value. We have an intimate understanding of the entertainment industry and how to best leverage it to deliver maximum value to our student performers and investors alike.

As the world’s first and only company to recognize and monetize student performing arts, we have an unrivaled opportunity to attract, grow and retain audiences who won’t find our content elsewhere. And we’re keeping a close eye on the second act. Similar companies, with a smaller scope than UpStaged, have exited at stunning valuations.

Just like athletics, performing arts take skill, dedication and practice to reach a high-level worthy of competition. UpStaged Entertainment is poised to be the world’s first company devoted to raising the profile of student performing artists while giving our investors the opportunity to profit.

Forbes Magazine (Dec. 2020) says, “Market analysts seeking value where stronger productivity, higher revenues and historic innovations are virtually guaranteed, need look no further than the entertainment industry...which is poised for a healthy, robust and truly massive and transformative surge.”

With a dedicated team, we’ve put everything in place for exponential growth in the coming months. Our proprietary performance ecosystem is designed to powerfully bring together talent, fans, technology and commerce to create massive opportunities for performers and investors alike.

The perks of investing and more...

Beyond the awesome perks (such as event tickets, VIP access, formal recognition, and more) of investing in UpStaged, there's also the added benefit of knowing that you are impacting student performers across the nation. This is your opportunity to influence the lives and career trajectory of MILLIONS of young artists.